Dembski seems to think Darwin was a racist when it came to the “careless, squalid, unaspiring” Irish. Pat Hayes points out Dembski’s selective quotation of Darwin and John Wilkins applies the coup de grace. I hope these aren’t the “research” methods that Dembski is teaching to his students at his little bible school.

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A couple days ago, I was arguing with a creationist that first denied the existence of the condensation theory but then he said that it was out-dated. The creationist still believes that there is no theory that explains the origins of stars and planets.

The creationist I argued with is a fan of Kent Hovind. Kent Hovind is so good at just making it the scientists look stupid. If you’ve seen the debates between Matthew Rainbow and Kent Hovind then you’d probably agree with me: http://evolution-videos.blogspot.com/

My favorite parts of M. Rainbow vs. K. Hovind:

(1) When Kent degrades the use of 3d animations and images by calling them imagination based

(2) When Kent tells the audience how the eye isn’t poorly designed “I told the scientist ‘Octopuses live in water.'”

Another funny thing about Kent is he practically uses the same arguments everytime. I think that they should have brought several different scientists to debate with Kent. First an astrophysicist to talk about the origins of stars and planets. Then maybe an astrobiologist or organic chemist would be adequate to talk about the building blocks of life… Miller Urey experiment and its variations. Finally a geneticist and a paleontologist would also be good for the debate. Oh yeah and instead of a 3 hour debate which is definitely not long enough for what needs to be said by each scientist vs Kent… a 3 hours a day for a week.
Nevermind. Too bad he’s in jail now. He is in jail right?

Pat Hayes and John Wilkins are normally intelligent fellows, but in their desperation to vindicate Darwin they get this totally wrong; Darwin was most certainly not disagreeing with Galton and Greg. As he states at the beginning of the section (“NATURAL SELECTION AS AFFECTING CIVILISED NATIONS”), “This subject has been ably discussed by Mr. W.R. Greg …, and previously by Mr. Wallace and Mr. Galton…. Most of my remarks are taken from these three authors.”

In the paragraph in question, Darwin lays out Greg’s argument for a “downward tendency”, a tendency that he generally accepts, and he takes no issue at all with Greg’s comments about Irishmen and Scots. But then he points out that the tendency that Greg refers to is not absolute; he points out two “checks to this downward tendency”. However, he finishes up with

If the various checks specified in the two last paragraphs, and perhaps others as yet unknown, do not prevent the reckless, the vicious and otherwise inferior members of society from increasing at a quicker rate than the better class of men, the nation will retrograde, as has occurred too often in the history of the world. We must remember that progress is no invariable rule.

In other words, while there are checks to this tendency, they don’t always halt it, and when they don’t, the consequences are just as Greg stated. Darwin isn’t disagreeing with or refuting the views of Greg and Galton; that’s absurd. He’s only refining their stance by pointing out mitigations. You people should all be embarrassed that you so misrepresent Darwin’s argument in order to avoid a bogeyman. So what if Darwin shared Greg’s views of Irishmen and Scots? He was a man of his times and culture, but that matters not a whit to whether the theory of evolution is valid. You play right into Dembski’s hands by treating his ad hominem as if it had any value, as if, somehow, if Darwin really was making such an argument, that would lend credence to “intelligent design” or would be a strike against “scientific materialism”.

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